Private Conversations (Threaded PMs)
 

Private Conversations is a small mod that adjusts the way your PMs are displayed; Instead of the old method which shows one at a time quoting the last message, this threads them and makes them work much like the Conversation feature that visitor messages use. A conversation is defined as two users PMing eachother using the same PM title (With or without the "Re:" prefix), so as to not mix up different conversations that aren't related.

Known Bugs

• The conversation page looks ugly. I know, I'm sorry. I plan to redesign it straight away.
• Sending a PM to yourself will show all messages that other people have sent you that have the same title. But to be honest, how often do you PM yourself? ;)
• It currently ignores user-set avatar rules ("Hide all avatars", for example).
• ???
• Find a bug? Please let me know :)

To-Do List

• Figure out a way to make folders work with conversations.
• Redesign the conversation page!
• Add a paging method to conversations, currently all of the messages are on the same page.
• ???
• Got an idea? Please tell me :)

Installation
Simply open up your ACP, click "Plugins & Products" on the left, "Manage Products", then import the attached file. No uploading or modifications required :D

Usage
Private Conversations is entirely automatic, no configuration or installation required (Other than the above). Upon visiting the "Private Messages" page, this mod will automatically list conversations. To see normal PMs instead of conversations, simply select a folder at the top menu (Such as "Inbox") and Private Conversations will let the default view take over; It will always allow vBulletins PM system priority over itself whenever it detects that the user has selected a folder.
A reply box will show at the top of each message, allowing for easy replies. You can also select 'View Full' on each message to see it in the old format, which you can also reply to using the old method. All messages apart from the three latest are automatically collapsed inside conversations, to save page space.

Note to mod developers
This uses and calls the following inbuilt hooks: private_showpm_start, private_messagelist_start, private_messagelist_messagebit, and private_messagelist_period. Because I am not too sure on how well this will cope with other mods, I have added a variable $pricon that will set to true if the user is viewing conversations not normal PMs, which you may check for in plugins and use to halt your code should it be incompatible for some reason.

Awesome mod !!
First install :D

I guess that i could now disable the "visitor messages".

This looks great! Thanks for this.

-Dave

Hi

Thanks for this

What is this section at the top, Is it supposed to be a quick reply area? See image please

If i click one of those 2 buttons i get

The following errors occurred with your submission:

1. Please complete both the subject and message fields.

Hm, it is indeed meant to be a quick reply box. It's odd that it isn't showing up on your forums... I'll look into it.

Thank you, its more than likely because i am using the mns7 style, Although i used to
have the quick reply before your mod was installed :)

I had a quick question. Is there a way we can put a small amount of space between the avatar and the PM text. It seems a BIT crowded to me. I love the mod and this is not a complaint, merely a suggestion.

Thank you so much in advance!

-Dave

@ Dinnerbone.....You come up with some cool stuff! I'm going to watch this. Looks awesome. Thanks

This is great honestly!!! Love the addon, this should be a default add in vB... That's how good it is ;)

wow this is a sweeet mod thanks so much for taking your time to code this :D:D

very kewl, installed

Awesome mod, installed. :)

Very nice mod, I wait with installing till the redesign of the conversations.

Nice I will try it out on http://kaplanuniversitystudentforums.com ...Thanks so much!

so much better than usual ,,

installed

I love you! =)

Nice mod but is it's triggering 21 queries? you've got uncache template as well :)

Well, I said I was going to redesign the page ;) But if I don't get around to redesigning it next version, I'll put the avatar margin on :)

Yeah sorry about that, they'll be cached next version and I'm looking into reducing the queries, although caching the templates alone will reduce the number greatly.

Please use vbphrases for this:

View Full
Collapse
Expand

great Thank you :)

Whoops, I didn't realise 'View Full' wasn't attached to a phrase. I'll fix that next version. As for Collapse and Expand, they are already phrases.

I think there are already original vb phrases for those words, if you would use them (not your custom phrases), then we wouldn't need to translate them anymore.

I wonder if this works on vb 3.8. Has anyone tried?

I check for existing phrases before making new ones. There already is a 'view full' one which I'll use, but the closest to 'Collapse' that I found was 'collapse_x', which was a Style phrase and as such would require style phrases to be included in the PM system. There was a 'expand' phrase, but again it was a Style phrase.

Alfa1, I'm installing 3.8 as we speak so I'll be making a version for that if this is not directly compatible.

Oh yeah, you were right with the phrases.

Good work by the way, looks good.

Well, something is a bit strange and I am not sure why:

Not all conversation messages are displayed of some members. Could it be that they have deleted their messages from their "sent items" folder?

It will only show their side of the conversation if they have the messages in their Sent Items folder, as doing otherwise would defeat the purpose of that folder and might also open up possible exploits in reading other peoples mail, as well as causing other complications.
Please check to make sure they have the messages inside their sent folder box, if they are there then can you please tell me if there is any relation to the messages that aren't shown - such as they are all the nth message, or are all sent by the same user, etc.


Edit: Alfa1, I just tested in vBulletin 3.8 and it appears to work fine. But it looks like "Save a copy of this message in your Sent Items folder" is unchecked by default in that version, which is required for this mod to show users sent messages in conversations. This only applies to messages sent using the normal form, the quick reply I included with the mod automatically saves them.

Would be nice if the conversation showed how many messages were in it.

I have a lot of conversations. But it only shows one page of them. When I go to page 2, it goes back to the default view. Is this normal?

Next version :)

I think I know what's wrong; Whenever a folder is selected, it reverts to the default view because this doesn't use folders - vBulletin selects the inbox (by default) when viewing a different page. A fix is on it's way in the next version, it should be ready by tonight :)

Thanks for the great work keep it up dinnerbone this is a sweet addon :)

Thx from Germany, it`s really nice and it?s worth to go on with the work for this MOD.
Installed ... and waiting for Updates ... :cool:

Is there a way to show the thread in reverse order? Oldest first and replies under?

Quick fix I did:

Find this in template pm_showconvo:

Add a padding: 6px; line under float:left; like so:

Gives a pretty nice look with minimal change to the code.

Just a few suggestions/requests for this mod, if I don't find a way to do them myself :D :

-Find a way to reverse the view order (or give the user an option to reverse the order) so it appears from oldest at the top, to newest at the bottom, with the quick reply box at the bottom of the list so it appears more like a thread
(I know this has already been requested)

-Add a check box to allow the user to select all messages in the conversation for deletion

-Give a drop down box with more options when a message is selected (just like when you're in the standard "View Inbox" view, there is a drop-down box with delete, move, mark read, mark unread, and export options with a Go! button)

-Currently, after you delete a message or choose to look in your Sent Items or Inbox (or any custom folder), you are returned to the standard Private Messages view, not Private Conversations. Improve the usability of this function to return back to Private Conversations for the end user so that they don't have to click on the "Private Messages" button in the welcome block or "List Messages" in the User CP just to get back to the Private Conversations view.

-Put more user information about the sender than their avatar and username with a link to their profile. Can easily reproduce the format here based on what's in the postbit template for the threads in the forums to show the user's name, their title, a drop-down box for the user information, as well as instant messaging icons and other information.

I definitely like it so far, though! :D I was getting tired of multiple levels of nested quotes in my PMs!

Great product :up: !

but i face the same problem:(

- I'm working on custom sorts and such, they're already (partially) working on my test forums. The layout of the page is subject to peoples own tastes, some want it to appear as a thread with full postbits and such, but others (such as myself) want it to appear more like the current "Conversation" system that is in place for visitor messages. I'm looking at options to cater both, but for now I'm afraid it's easier for me to use the second view.

- I've got that working on my test forums, it will be in for the next version.

- I was going to, but I realised that there aren't really much options I can put in. You can't move messages to certain folders, because the way the conversation system works. Mark read and unread again aren't the most useful options to add because it only checks if the latest message was read/unread not other ones inside the conversation, which leaves us with the Delete option. I'll be looking to support the other options at a later date when I rewrite the way Conversations are stored and identified.

- vBulletin likes to stick the folderid on the end of the URL wherever possible, and naturally this product lets any URL with a folderid take priority over itself because the user might have opted to view in the old way. I have created a fix on my test forums to not include the folderid when deleting messages and it will be in for the next release.

- See the first point :)

Thank you for your feedback :)


I hit a little logical problem in the next version and it might not be released as soon as I'd liked. I'm going to look at an alternate method of storing and identifying conversations that will hopefully resolve lots of logical issues that prevent me from making major adjustments, as well as including better features and hopefully all less database strain. There's no ETA to the next version I'm afraid, it'll be done when it's done :)

This is a really great idea. I will use this once the new version is out with the extra bits. Really looking forward to it! My members will love it. :)

Installed. Very nice ! Works fine here ! Thanks !!

I was a bit to early. This is very unstable at my forum. It changes between old pm system and this one. And it removes old messages from the converstation

A good Addon nevertheless is missing nen bissl which.
Adjustment to the Addon pn appendix.
Adjustment file & Exit should look alike.
Überschirft receiving in the post office entrance is missing.

How would it be to be integrated message pursuit in the post office exit?

Auf deutsch:

Ein gutes Addon doch fehlt nen bissl was.
Anpassung zum Addon PN Anhang.
Anpassung Ordner Ein & Ausgang sollten gleich aussehen.
Überschirft Empfangen im Posteingang fehlt.
Wie wäre es die Nachrichtenverfolgung im Postausgang zu integrieren?